Confession: I Breastfeed My Blog

Sure I do.  Because my blog is my baby.  And everyone - the media, the fellow moms, the scientists - keeps telling me that breast is best. That nursing this being is a labor of love and good in the long run.  That if I sacrifice sleep in these early days, that if I invest this time and energy up front, it will pay off. And, yes, it is still very early.  My beautiful baby blog is a newborn.  A little over four weeks old. A tiny little creature who is new to this world wide web.  For the longest time (okay, only months) she was growing inside of me, a fiery figment of my insistent and indulgent imagination, gaining strength and stature, kicking and punching, prepping for life online. And she is a good baby, quite cooperative, nice enough to look at.  She is meeting her milestones just fine.  She has started smiling which brings me unrivaled joy.  But maybe it is just gas.

But to be honest the posting-partum hormones are still raging, doing their subversive digital dance.  Sometimes I secretly wonder what I have done. Because before my baby blog was born, I did sublime and silly things like read celebrity magazines and stroll the streets.  Before she was born, I had conversations with Husband about things other than bloggie daycare and search engine sleep schedules.  And sometimes I wonder if she will survive this trying time. And if indeed I will.

But I will survive this and be stronger for the experience.  This is a unique time.  This baby blog needs me.  All the time, it seems.  And I am her mom, so I must be there.  Ready and waiting to feed her my precious milky mixture of ideas and images and anecdotes and confessions. Because right now no one else can give her just what she needs.  She needs me.

But what if I give a bottle?  Would this nano-being suffer nipple confusion?  What if I pump some milk for later? Draft some stories and sagas for another time? Would this be cheating?  Would she develop properly?  Is frozen thought as good as fresh? And am I producing enough?  Or, too much?  How many ounces of blogmilk does this baby need per day?  Per week? And what if I decide to give some guest-blog-formula?  Will she be okay?

I know it is controversial, but I'm beginning to think I might need some help.  What if I hired a blog nurse?  Or a digital doula? Yes, she would cost top dollar, but she would be a seasoned soul with sage stories to tell.  She would stand by and keep me sane and tell me (even if it weren't entirely true) how good a job I am doing with my bouncing baby blog.  How I am an absolute natural.  How my maternal and metaphorical instincts are magical.  She would teach me all the technological tricks of the trade.  How to bathe my blog and keep her clean and smelling fresh.  How to burp her code and content and get all of the bubbles out. She would teach me how to sleep at night without obsessively checking my hit-counter-baby-monitor.

And maybe, just maybe, she would teach me not to worry every moment whether my baby is okay.  Whether she is breathing.  Whether people think she's as cute as I do. Whether my newborn will grow up to be a well-trafficked toddler blog.  Whether she will be in the perfect percentiles among her peers. Whether, ultimately, she will mature into a lovely lady blog, one who is polite but powerful.  A decorous diva who always has something to say.  Whether she will indeed be that philosophical and philanthropic player in the blogosphere, one whom fellow citizens will revere and respect.  Whether, years from now, she will be that humble and honest and happy cyber-soul this mom dreams she will be.